How To Give Up Ill Will - Part One

Hello,

And welcome to Lifetimes of Learning,

A production at the Buddhist Education Centre,

Which is a part of Buddhist Discussion Centre Australia.

In our podcast series,

We will be discussing the wisdom and teachings of Buddha from 2600 years ago,

Which can help improve our happiness and lives at a deep level in this modern era.

In this podcast,

We will cover part one of how to give up ill-will.

Wherever you are,

We invite you to bring your attention to the present,

Smile,

And listen to the teachings of the Buddha.

We want to move on specifically to ill-will.

So ill-will,

We would recognise,

It's like a spectrum of intensity,

If you like.

So we would all recognise ill-will could be manifesting at the worst end of the scale,

Or the grossest end of the scale,

Would be anger,

Hate,

Being furious,

Being extremely upset,

Annoyed,

Even maybe to the extent that the person could be violent,

Under the effect of ill-will.

If we move it back,

Slide it down in intensity,

We would find that we were dissatisfied a lot of the time,

We had a lot of anxiousness and anxiety,

We were annoyed,

Maybe argumentative,

Maybe fault-finding,

Even it can be fault-finding with ourselves,

You know,

We may not like ourselves.

So it's a general dislike and wanting things to stop,

Things that we don't like,

Would they go away?

So these can be all sorts of myriads of types of behaviour and attitudes can flow from this.

If we go to a more subtler level it can be seen as just discomfort,

Dislike,

Not wanting this to be,

Like you can actually turn the channels on your television on the basis of ill-will,

Oh I don't like this,

I don't like this,

I don't like this.

It can just be operating like that because it's part of our mind,

It's part of our normal way that we live,

Right?

But even though it's part of the way we live,

It doesn't mean it's beneficial.

Is there another mind or other minds that we could do those same things with that would be better?

Obviously if we can deal with difficult people in a way that didn't lead us to arguing and getting annoyed and being frustrated,

If we had a way of operating where we had a skill set that could manage those situations without it destroying our well-being and happiness,

Clearly that'd be way better for us.

But the problem is that ill-will has its own logic system,

It has its own way of seeing the world,

Its own way of understanding the world,

And it doesn't have scope to behave in a different way.

So ill-will basically,

It's like a dog barks,

It doesn't make another noise.

Ill-will has its own way of seeing everything.

So if you're on a mind of ill-will,

It's like,

Say you have a mind of irritability,

It's like everything you come across seems to cause you to be irritable.

It doesn't matter,

You know,

There's some noises,

Oh,

I wish they'd be quiet,

You know.

Whatever the stimulus is,

Ill-will doesn't like it because that's its nature,

That's all it can do.

It can't be a mind that enjoys things,

Finds interest in things,

Is praising people or enjoying people,

It can't do those things.

It's limited in its scope of what its responses can be and how it can perceive things.

So if you walk around with the mind of ill-will,

You're going to bump into a lot of things that annoy you automatically.

In the world,

You're not going to see things that you will appreciate or things that will bring you pleasure or things that will bring you joy.

You're walking down the same street,

There could be many beautiful things,

Beautiful flowers,

Beautiful gardens,

Beautiful architecture,

All sorts of things.

But if you've got a mind of ill-will,

You'll be seeing the things that you don't like.

So out of all the things that are around,

Your mind will be cognating and resonating with things that the ill-will is disturbed by.

So that's how these minds are.

They're all like that.

So if you have a mind of worry,

It will be getting things that worry it.

I've seen minds of worry,

I've been stuck on something and I've managed to get off it and stop worrying.

But then,

A few minutes later,

I'm worrying about another thing.

And then,

All right,

I can get rid of that.

But then the next thing,

I'm worrying about something else.

It's because I'm still on the mind of worry.

And normally it might,

If there's something particularly that worries you,

You'll just be tuning into that all the time.

But if it's not something in particular,

But you just have this mind of worry,

You could be laying in bed,

First you're worrying about the bills,

Then you're worrying about your children,

Then you're worrying about the shopping,

Then you're worrying about,

Because that's what that mind is doing.

That's all it can do.

It's called the mind of worry because that's its nature.

So ill-will is the same.

All the hindrances are the same.

They have a diet of those things that it does.

So ill-will can't enjoy,

You can't enjoy things with ill-will.

You can't be friendly with ill-will.

You can't,

You know,

Be kind.

Actually ill-will is kind of the opposite of being kind.

If you look at its nature,

If you're very angry,

You want to really rip into the other person.

You want to put them down or stop them in their tracks or convince them that they're completely wrong and you're right.

It's like the opposite of friendliness.

You're really trying to shut the other person down.

And if you're really angry,

You might want to hit them as a way of,

You know,

It's like you're interested in harming them.

You're not interested in the well-being.

You want to do some damage.

That's the really angry mind.

It's like that.

So when you scale that back,

Even when it's not anger,

It's still a basic dislike of others.

That's its nature.

It's not going to turn around and like people.

It's basically antisocial,

Antifriendly,

Antikind.

That's how it manifests.

That's its activities.

So I think probably if you just see that the logic system of ill-will means it can only behave in certain ways and there's a whole lot of other ways that would be good,

Like forgiving people,

Recognising that people that are upset are in pain themselves and maybe you could comfort them,

Recognising that somebody that's struggling,

Maybe your kindness would be helpful.

But ill-will doesn't have those options.

It doesn't have that kit of parts.

So this is the nature of these minds,

That they're unwholesome,

They're unbeneficial,

Not only to others,

But they're not beneficial to us because they also treat us badly,

Just as they would treat others badly.

Those minds are beating up on us.

Those minds are not friendly to us.

They're not our friends.

They're not supporting our well-being.

They're causing our problems.

They don't have a receptor that says,

Oh,

Am I giving Frank a hard time,

If it's me or you or whoever.

Those minds don't have a process where they're assessing whether they're actually causing us pain.

That doesn't exist.

As long as they're on stage,

They're just chomping away,

Disturbing us,

Causing our anxiety,

Causing our confusion,

Causing our annoyance,

Without any concern of whether that is painful for us to experience.

So we are the ones that are suffering from our own defilements and our own hindrances,

Just as much as anyone else would suffer from.

So this is the idea that ultimately we have to abandon them,

Because they're completely not remotely connected to our true well-being.

They can't contribute to our well-being.

Even though on one level they might be habitual,

We might actually use them to get things done.

Sometimes annoyance can drive people to do something.

Also,

Annoyance can be skills associated with these minds.

They're not stupid.

It doesn't say they don't have intelligence,

But they're very much negative in how they operate.

But they can be clever.

My word,

They can be clever.

An angry person maybe can provide a magnificent argument for why they're right and you're wrong.

They have intelligence,

But underneath that,

Their core business is not wholesome.

Their core behaviour cannot generate well-being and happiness.

So the fact that some of these minds are clever induces us to use them.

People like winning.

They like arguing.

They like maybe overcoming or maybe even controlling other people.

This happens,

And this is the nature of unwholesome minds.

They're not really interested in the well-being of others.

So they're very tricky and sticky.

They're sticky because they're hard to let go because we're grabbing,

And they're tricky because they con us into using them and not suspecting what they really like.

So worry seems to be contributing something that's beneficial.

Maybe we think we have to fix this problem,

So we start worrying and worrying and worrying.

But the worry mind will never fix problems.

It's not capable of fixing problems.

It doesn't have any skills and tools for that.

If you want to fix problems,

You have to use your best mind.

You have to analyse things.

You have to get some evidence.

You have to consider things from different viewpoints.

You have to have a way of assessing the risks and the strengths and the weaknesses of the different elements of the problem.

Worry hasn't got any of that stuff.

Worry just worries.

But it looks like and it feels like you're dealing with the problem because you're on it,

But you're worrying about it,

And that's not going to reduce the problem at all.

I don't remember,

And I've thought about this,

Any problems that I've been able to solve through worry.

But the next day I've sat down and I've written and I've written and I've thought,

Ah,

Yeah,

That could fix it.

When I've done analysis or used a different mind,

I could find a solution easily.

Or I could find a plan.

I could plan a solution.

Or I could assess something and figure some of it out.

But the worry mind is not capable of that.

Yet it might be the mind that we use when we have problems,

And we might be stuck on it for ages.

So this is the sense that they're tricky.

Okay,

So we've talked about it.

So I think the thing we need to go on to is,

Okay,

How do we abandon it?

What's the method?

How do we firstly let it go,

And then further,

How do we abandon it?

So we're not in the ring boxing our own mind,

Which is giving us a hard time.

We want to get out of the ring,

Leave that mind and go and do something better.

So that before we do that,

I want to just go around and see,

Firstly,

Simon,

You've got any comments you'd like to make or other elements of this that you'd like to contribute?

Yeah,

The hindrances stop us from seeing the way the world really is.

And so with anger,

Some of the symptoms of anger is that people are always wrong.

Stuff's not going well.

Someone can put a lot of effort into something and give it to you,

But it's like,

I don't really want that.

Even though,

Actually,

On another day,

It could be the most perfect,

Beautiful thing.

And the other way is it sort of manifests as,

Yeah,

You really want to,

It tries to solve the problem by controlling your external circumstances.

So it's very difficult to accept people for the way they are,

Because you want to say,

Can you stop doing that?

Or just don't be like that,

Or stuff like that.

So the anger,

The irritation is about trying to fix things,

Which just like it goes on this journey to try to solve the problem,

But it just can never,

It just causes more problems.

Yeah.

This is something to do with the bias of anger.

So a good way of looking at the bias of anger is,

Say you had an argument with somebody,

The angry mind will not concede a point to the other person.

Like,

They could give you a good argument,

But the angry mind will never acknowledge that.

It will just try to defeat it.

So it's not balanced.

It's completely lopsided.

It's not capable of really empathizing with the other person's viewpoint,

Of accepting the validity of the other person's belief or understanding.

It's completely,

There's a word for this,

I'm not sure what the word is,

I'm using the word bias,

But it's one-eyed.

And all it really wants to do is win.

It just wants to win.

It'll end up,

When it's run out of good arguments,

It'll just yell.

It'll just abuse the person.

It's so committed to defeating them.

And even when it doesn't have any resources left,

It'll just be brute force and it'll scream and yell and throw a tantrum.

Now this isn't a good mind,

Right?

This isn't a sane mind.

On one level it's intelligent,

But it's not wise.

It's really unwise.

And it's incredibly narrow in its way of processing things.

So this mind is not a self.

This is not who we are.

This is just one type of consciousness that can come up,

Right?

We can have lots of different types.

If we have a love mind,

We'll never behave like that.

We will never just be throwing abuse at the other person.

We will never be trying to defeat them.

Because love just doesn't do those things.

Love is interested in the other person's well-being.

So these types of consciousness,

We might take them to be ourself,

But they're not.

They're just different types of consciousness.

And some days we're on this one,

Or some minutes we're on this one,

And then we're on that one,

And then we're on the other one.

If we think that they're ourself,

Then we'll hang on and fight to win.

If we know they're not a self,

That they're just one type of consciousness,

We won't be so dogged and so bloody-minded.

And we'll be able to recognize that this is not beneficial.

This behavior is immature.

This behavior is not helpful.

And we'll just not do it.

So this is the blindness of the hindrances.

They are completely blind to what later on,

I'm sure,

I mean even the next day we might recognize we were over the top.

The hindrances don't have that,

They don't recognize their own nature.

So when we're in them,

We're blind.

Okay,

So what we need to do is,

We'll firstly just go around and see how you're going,

And then we'll talk about how do we get off these five hindrances,

And specifically today it's your work.

I notice you smiling quite often,

Recognizing,

You know,

Things that sort of run true.

Yeah,

Like I always feel like I have love for my family,

But sometimes when it comes to talking to them,

Lack of patience,

And so I didn't yell at them,

But sometimes I know that I haven't used the best tone that I could use talking to my parents,

And I started to assess my love for them,

Probably not enough.

That's why I still have got this more subtle level of ill will when interacting with them.

That's because we're passive.

So we accept the minds that arise in us,

We just accept them.

So if it happens that an annoyed mind arises,

Then we just,

Okay,

We just behave that way.

We don't have a way of flicking to a different mind because we're passive,

We're accepting of everything.

But in Buddhism,

We're examining,

Is this wholesome or unwholesome?

Because,

If we're accepting unwholesomes,

Then we're going to behave according to the way the unwholesome mind is,

According to its characteristics.

So it's like we have to be a gatekeeper to check,

What is my mental state?

Is this a wholesome or is it an unwholesome?

And that's active.

That means we're doing something.

You know,

We do that in the world all the time,

Where we're making decisions about should we do this,

Shouldn't we do this,

We're checking,

We're figuring things out,

But with our mind we just let it all come.

It can be all sorts of stuff,

And we just don't care.

That's no good.

That's passive.

So we have to be able to consider and examine,

And if we know the characteristics,

And that's why we've been explaining,

Is so that we know what they look like.

So when they come up,

We can see it,

And we can say,

Ah,

I know what that is.

Then we can be active.

And then we,

Having identified what it is,

We can then do something to do better.

So you can see in your family,

It's very easy,

It's normal to be passive.

But maybe it's not good enough.

It's just a habit,

And now you've got to be more active in assessing the mind and choosing a response.

Yeah,

True.

You've got to be awake,

Which is mindfulness,

Right?

You have to have mindfulness.

Yeah,

Thank you.

Naomi,

How did you go?

I think it really resonated with me,

And it makes me reflect on a few examples.

Yeah,

Can you speak up a bit?

Yeah,

I think as you were saying,

Going through the teachings,

It makes me reflect on a few examples.

For example,

I caught up with my mentor once a month about work,

But then I was asking her,

What can I do to gain the most knowledge before I leave?

And then she kind of put it back to me,

Saying,

What about thinking about what can you do to leave a better system behind before you leave?

And I realized,

Yeah,

I have that kind of selfish mindset,

But then when there's a minute you will.

And then when I heard she mention that,

My mind kind of shifted,

And then it also helps me be more patient at work by having,

What can I do to make other people's lives better even after I leave?

So yeah,

I felt like having a shifted mind really,

Really,

Really makes a difference.

That's good.

In-Sik,

How did you go?

Yeah,

I have a lot of unwholesome minds arise a lot of the time.

That's alright.

Yeah,

And it's normal.

If you've got some strategy,

Then that's okay.

Yeah,

And obviously,

You try to be mindful,

You try to generate the wholesome minds,

But they come so quickly,

And sometimes there's these comments in your head that's trying to get in an argument,

You know,

You should this,

You should not that.

It makes it so convincing,

Like with a slip of a mind,

Like,

Yeah,

Maybe I should.

It's like you kind of lose,

It's like you got caught into believing on the comments,

And like,

Yeah,

You should do that based on your previous experience,

Which,

Yes,

May be true to one circumstance,

But it seems like because that circumstance worked,

We keep relying on it and then trying to replicate that success,

And then we kind of just got off track believing that's the best thing to do every time,

Which it's not.

It's like you try to replicate success more than try to,

You know,

The concern wasn't about,

You know,

Is this the best interest of both parties involved,

It's just more like,

Okay,

That worked that time,

It must work every time.

It's like it's really fixed about just having it a specific way.

There's no leeway for,

Like,

Any,

You know,

Any generosity or any patience.

Yeah,

I can see that occurring a lot,

But I'm trying to always,

When I recognize there's an unwholesome mind,

It's like when I drive,

You know,

Especially when you drive to work in the morning,

There's a lot of people who will cut into your lane,

And then it's very easy for you to just say,

That is wrong,

You know,

They shouldn't have done that,

That was dangerous,

You know,

But at the same time,

It's just like,

Okay,

Well,

If I get tangled up in this anger,

I'm going to be upset for a long time,

And that person doesn't even know I'm angry,

What's the point?

It's just like me,

You know,

Getting stuck in this emotion for no reason.

So I'm just like,

Okay,

I want to have a harmonious relationship with all beings,

So I'll just drop this anger,

And just,

Yeah,

The next moment,

Yeah.

Look,

A lot of the things we get angry about on a conventional level,

You could say,

Oh,

Well,

You're justified,

You know,

I mean,

They shouldn't be cutting you off in the traffic,

They shouldn't have,

There's a lot of things that people shouldn't be doing,

And when they're doing it to us,

We get upset,

And conventionally,

You'd say,

Well,

Of course you're justified,

That behavior was really bad,

Right?

But the problem is,

The anger is harmful to us,

The annoyance is harmful to us,

And so it gets down to how do we deal with those things in a way that mean that we can look after ourselves,

We can look after our well-being and happiness.

We don't cause that to cause more damage,

You know,

That somebody does something that's not nice to us.

If we handle it in the wrong way,

We continue the damage,

We make the damage grow,

And that's self-inflicted,

Right?

So even though they might have done the wrong thing and we might be justified in being annoyed,

But we're not justified in being annoyed in terms of our well-being.

There's nothing that is justified,

No unwholesome is justified if it's causing our,

If it's harming us,

If it's harmful to us,

It doesn't matter what the logical justification is,

Right?

We're actually shooting ourselves in the foot.

So can we deal with those things in a way which is wholesome,

Firstly,

And then that's also appropriate,

Right?

That's skillful,

Right?

So this is a whole skill set we have to build.

Yes?

Thank you.

I think to know that,

Like,

You know,

To recognize that,

Like,

Sometimes because we follow that,

You know,

You're justified to be angry,

You actually believe in your own sort of angry mind that it's right.

That's one of the tricks of why it's tricky,

Because it makes sense to be angry.

Which is not nice anyway.

It's like,

I want to be right so I can be angry.

It just sounds really wrong when you try to say it that way,

But we get tricked all the time.

The five hindrances are highly addictive and very seemingly rational.

This is the main problem.

Yeah,

It makes sense to us.

Yeah,

That's part of it.

So we need sort of interventions,

Isn't it?

That's what we're trying to do,

Interventions and disruptions of these sorts of patterns of thinking.

I mean,

Look,

The problem is those two things,

They're highly addictive.

They make sense to us,

But they're highly dangerous.

Yeah.

And that's the bit that we don't factor in,

Right?

And if you look around in the world,

You can see the danger of these.

And also you can see that generally everyone believes the mental state that arises in their mind.

So you can see people doing ridiculous things,

You know,

Things that will put them in prison.

Things that are breaking the law,

Things that are self-destructive.

Simply because people are caught by the mental state that's arisen.

And they don't have a way of recognizing that it's harmful.

It's addictive and it's self-justified.

So the person that's doing something really dumb,

At that moment thinks they're doing something that completely makes sense to them.

Everybody that's doing whatever they're doing,

Even the stupidest things,

From their side,

And it can be us too,

We believe what we're doing makes sense.

But is it beneficial?

Oh,

We didn't ask that question.

Is it helpful?

Is it wholesome?

I don't know.

I never thought of that.

But this is like the immediacy is these minds are like traps.

They are tricky.

But the point about it is,

Once you know that,

Once you recognize that and you understand that,

You're way better off.

You're so much better,

You're empowered to deal with those minds in a way that you don't get caught by them as much.

Initially,

There's no way we can just jump off those minds completely.

It's a process over time where we learn how to not be caught.

We learn a set of skills where we build skills of how not to get caught up in dumb minds,

Basically.

That's what we have to do.

We have to train ourselves.

We've got skills in all sorts of things that we learn for life,

Right?

Did we learn this skill?

No,

Never.

So we keep getting caught up in things that are basically harmful.

So we have to start building skills.

This is sort of our own inner development.

Skills of how to develop our wholesomeness and how to abandon our unwholesomeness.

And you can develop these skills.

They're perfectly developable.

So that's what our journey should be if we're on a path to what is our well-being and happiness.

That's a key part of what we need to understand.

Because the hindrances are the reason that we don't have well-being and happiness.

We have to not use them.

That's a skill.

So let's have a look at it.

What are these skills?

Yes,

Nam?

What are your thoughts on sadness?

Sometimes I find comfort in sadness.

But I'm not sure that's the right thing.

I enjoy sometimes listening to sad music,

Sad movies,

Have a cry.

Have a cry?

This is what I was thinking.

At the same time,

I'm really enjoying this.

You're enjoying it?

Well,

Normally sadness is accompanied by unpleasant feeling.

And it doesn't lead to.

.

.

Well,

You said afterwards,

After you've had a cry you feel better,

Right?

So it's sort of cathartic.

But the problem is,

When we use these minds,

It's like.

.

.

This is to do with karma.

So when we use something with volition,

It means that we're making the karma for that mind to come again.

It's like we're producing,

We're making the causes for that mind to arise again.

So this is what we conventionally call habit.

But if we do something a lot,

It's like it comes back to us,

Again and again and again and again,

And that becomes habitual.

So the problem is that these minds produce other minds that can arise in the future of the same type.

So if we're an angry person now,

When we're angry,

We're causing ourselves to be angry again.

So say somebody yells at me for this,

And then I get upset and I yell back.

So what's happening is,

When I yell back,

I'm making the causes for somebody in the future to yell at me.

And when I get upset,

I'm making the causes,

When they yell at me,

To get upset again.

That's karma.

And karma is,

In this sense,

It's like a loop.

That what you use,

You're making it more of the same.

So if you use unwholesomeness,

Then you're going to have them again,

Again and again and again,

Until you learn either way.

You don't have to learn,

Right?

But the only way you stop that is when you learn,

Hang on,

This isn't helping.

Actually,

Sadness does not bring peace.

Sadness does not bring clarity.

Sadness does not bring wisdom.

There's a whole lot of things it just doesn't bring.

And what it does bring is more sadness,

Because that's the karma of it.

So in the present,

You might have some rationale of why you think it's okay,

But you haven't analyzed it in these terms.

You're just seeing it superficially,

On the surface.

So some people think,

By being angry,

By letting it all out,

Somehow that's fixing the anger.

Well,

They might feel better,

But they've made another mind of anger to come back in the future.

And also they've made a belief system that thinks anger is good.

That's the karma of that sort of behavior.

They have the view that anger is good,

It's helpful.

So that'll come back again too.

So this is part of the tricky nature of the hindrances that on one level they do make sense to a particular way of looking at them,

But the way we're looking at them is very,

Very limited.

Those angry minds or those sadness minds don't have any idea of karma.

They don't know that they are themselves unwholesome.

They have no inkling that they are flawed,

That those minds are actually detrimental,

That they are an operating system which causes pain.

They don't know any of that.

So when you take on the mind,

You also take on its belief system,

Which is totally flawed.

And that belief system will never lead to true well-being.

It's impossible.

So you have to consider,

Is it wholesome or unwholesome?

This is a really simple test.

Will this lead to my long-term well-being and happiness?

And that means my mind is happy,

Bright,

Clear,

Peaceful,

Joyful.

Sadness won't do that.

There might be a short-term buzz or hit that you're getting out of it,

But it's only a buzz or a hit.

It's not really the foundations of happiness.

Good question though.

Because if you think of it this way,

If you think you kind of enjoy sadness,

Then ask yourself,

Would you want a life full of sadness then?

If you really enjoy it,

Would you enjoy a life that is full of sadness?

You wouldn't,

Right?

So you kind of know the answer,

Even intellectually,

That it is not something that you would like.

I think maybe when you release that sort of sadness,

You feel a bit better.

It's the releasing of the sadness that makes you feel better.

It's not the actual sadness that is a good thing.

That's a system that you've got some pain and you're trying to treat it with sadness.

Sadness is not a medicine.

So you have to find a better way of treating the pain than stimulating your sadness.

There's lots of ways of treating the pain which is wholesome that don't result in more pain.

But sadness is not one of those.

So how do we pretty much understand that the ill world is not beneficial?

It's not wholesome.

So that's the first thing.

How do we build a skill set that can manage the fact that all these mental states can arise unprompted?

We didn't set out.

.

.

Well,

In Nam's case,

She did set out to be sad.

But generally.

.

.

We didn't say,

All right,

Now I'm going to worry.

Right,

Okay,

Let's go.

No,

They just come by themselves.

We don't even know what's coming because they're not self.

They're not self.

If things were self,

We would know what the heck was going on because we would be the owner.

They would be something that we would be causing.

So these things arise unprompted.

They're not self.

So the trick is,

Is it wholesome or unwholesome?

So the first thing is you have to be in the present.

You have to develop mindfulness.

This is really one of the key basis of why we need to be mindful so we can see what's happening in our mind.

If we're not mindful,

We're asleep.

Anything comes and anything's fine.

We let it all come.

It doesn't really matter.

But mindfulness gives us the possibility of seeing what is arising and therefore being able to recognize wholesome or unwholesome.

The second thing is to be able to identify the different mental states.

We've talked about ill-will,

Dislike,

Annoyance,

Irritability,

Being negative,

Fault-finding,

Being critical.

These are all,

Or even just a sense of something that might lead to boredom because you just don't really get it,

You're not into it.

That can be subtle.

So the thing is to be able to say that this mental state will not contribute to my well-being.

This mental state,

If I get in there,

If I get in with the annoyance and if I just leave it there,

It will just generate annoyance.

That's all it can do.

And what comes with annoyance is unpleasant feeling.

So my mental experience will be unpleasant and disturbed.

So therefore it's got to be unwholesome.

So I need to look and find something better than this.

So that's actually a positive step.

It's investigation of mental states is what it's called.

And then once you've done that,

Then you can say,

All right,

I want to generate a wholesome.

So the sort of wholesomes that will work against anger.

The first one that is a universal solvent of anger is called loving-kindness,

Which is a deliberate practice in Buddhism.

So maybe Simon,

You could talk about loving-kindness.

And actually you could give examples of how you used it to deal with this perpetual annoyance or difficult circumstances.

That would be great.

So loving-kindness is,

First of all,

You have it towards yourself.

It's a respect.

It's a gratitude.

It's a joy.

It's a love for who you are and everything that you're about so that it helps you to accept who you are because we often carry around a lot of self-hatred.

We don't really address it,

But we are often very critical of ourselves.

We should be better.

We should be doing this.

If only I had so on and so forth.

So loving-kindness firstly begins to allow you to accept who you are 100%,

As opposed to this constant dissatisfaction to the sound of your voice,

The way that you look,

The way you move,

These sorts of things.

So you generate a love and respect and a gratitude for who you are and what you're about.

And then what you're doing is,

Once you've generated that feeling for yourself,

You then want to have the wish that everyone else can feel exactly the same way.

They don't have this anxiety that we're walking around and that we're not good enough and that we need to do more and we should be doing so many other things that we're not and get into this tangle of,

You know,

We can't accept who we are and we hate who we are.

So you turn it towards yourself and then you really develop a genuine wish that other beings can feel the same way,

Can have this idea that they are good and they do matter and they are important.

So I use this technique in order to become better in the classroom because the first time I started teaching several years ago,

I had a very,

Very challenging class.

It was very frustrating because the students weren't listening,

They weren't paying attention to me,

They weren't behaving in the classroom,

They weren't learning anything,

They weren't doing anything.

And no matter what I did on a conventional level,

I couldn't get them to respond to me and what I was trying to do.

So I knew about Metta and I knew that Metta is very powerful,

So I applied this technique to my work.

So what I did was in the mornings I would start by sending Metta to myself,

Which is also,

It's a sense of forgiveness,

So whatever mistakes that you've made in the past,

You can forgive yourself for that.

And also if you send yourself Metta,

It helps you to recognise that failure is not a major problem,

It's just something that happens.

So I'd send love and respect and gratitude to myself and then I would send it to the students that I was teaching.

And over time they started to get a little bit better,

They started to calm down,

They started to be a little bit better behaved.

They were still doing some of the things that they would normally do,

But what I noticed is that when your Metta is very well developed and very strong,

Someone can do something that maybe three months ago you would find really irritating is not irritating anymore.

You would notice that you used to find it irritating,

But what it's like is it's sort of their behaviour just slides off you.

It doesn't stick to you in the way that it used to.

It doesn't irritate you or disturb you in the way that it does because you've got this baseline level of loving kindness for yourself and that other person that you've developed to quite a powerful degree.

So I found it was exceptionally powerful and a very positive practice to do when dealing with people who explicitly,

We're talking teenagers here,

Don't really want to deal with you.

Because school is torture or what you're trying to do to us is horrible and you're locking me in this room.

So I found it a very,

Very powerful addition to what I was doing.

So you used to do it in the mornings before you'd go to school?

Yeah,

I'd do it in the mornings before I'd go to school.

So like a meditation?

Yeah,

I would imagine that I was sitting in the classroom and sending Metta,

And so when I would go to the classroom,

That mind would come up.

Good,

Okay.

So the point about this is that Metta,

As this particular antidote to ill will,

Can be developed in meditation.

It's a meditation.

So if you go online,

You'll find this is a basic Buddhist meditation.

And the idea is you're building a mind and a skill set to deal with life,

To deal with the fact that life is a mixture of good things and not good things,

Pleasant things and not pleasant things,

Good experiences and not good experiences,

Easy good relationships and not.

So if we only have anger to deal with all of that complexity,

We're hopelessly under-resourced to deal with life.

We've only got a negative process that we can use to manage all these different experiences.

So we have to build a different option,

An option that is incredibly robust and powerful and skillful at dealing with just life as it is,

All its ups and downs and goods and bads and whatever.

And that,

In this case,

Is the mind of loving-kindness.

So it's a mind,

And it can be developed,

And it can become stronger and stronger.

And actually the Buddhist monks,

In many cases,

Live in this mind because they've cultivated it so much.

They've meditated a lot and they've developed this mind so it's like automatic,

It's just their nature.

And not only Buddhist monks,

Many people have developed loving-kindness like this.

So in the end,

If you develop a mind where you more or less live in it all the time,

That's like a total protection against the unwholesome mental state.

If you're living in a wholesome mental state,

How does the unwholesome get in there?

It doesn't,

Because that wholesome mental state is on stage and there's no space for the unwholesome.

And it is a protection against the unwholesome arising.

And it just turns out that loving-kindness,

As you develop it,

Weakens the unwholesome state of ill-will.

So it's like a completely self-natured natural medicine that can be used against the illness of ill-will.

So it's worth spending time,

It's worth investing in that sort of wholesome mental state because it does the job of removing the unwholesome by itself.

You don't have to get in there and,

You know,

Do whatever you might have to do to abandon the unwholesome.

The wholesome mind does that.

It's its property.

So loving-kindness is particularly relevant for ill-will,

But it turns out it is an antidote to every other hindrance.

It's an antidote to flurry and worry,

Doubt,

Sense of desire,

Them all.

So in Buddhism,

That's one of the main practices.

It's like a foundational mind to develop because it facilitates the whole process of moving towards being well and happy,

Having a happy mind,

Happy mental state,

And also being able to not be thrown around by what's going on.

It might be very unpleasant,

But the mind of loving-kindness,

When it's strong,

Can handle that,

No problem.

This concludes Part 1 of How to Give Up Ill-Will.

Thank you for tuning into our Lifetimes of Learning channel.

May you be well and happy.

May all beings be well and happy.